DynamoKid Touch iPhoneReview

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A cute Cannabalt clone that needs a little tweaking.

By Levi Buchanan

I could try to distill DynamoKid Touch into something deep – rhapsodizing about its themes of perseverance, destiny, and determination – but really, this is pretty much just a super-cute Canabalt. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as Canabalt remains a very special iPhone game and there are far worse titles to model after.

Your role in DynamoKid is to make sure the titular runner is able to get as far to the right as possible and collect as many stars as you can along the way. You tap the kid to make him jump. Touching enemies eliminates them. Swiping across hanging stars drops them into the kid's path for easy collecting. Sounds easy, right? DynamoKid's challenge comes from the need for you to color objects that keep him from tumbling into the void. For example, as you rush up to a black-and-white bridge, you must rub it to fill in the missing colors and make it usable for the kid. It's a cool idea.

Colored-in Canabalt

DynamoKid, however, is held back by some fussy controls. The kid wouldn't necessarily always jump unless I tapped directly on top of him. When you are trying to color in the path, eliminate enemies, and drop stars, you don't necessarily have time for pin-point accuracy. Cut me a little slack here. And some of the swiping to color in objects didn't respond nearly fast as necessary to complete enough of the platform. I'd start rubbing to make a bridge, watch is frustration as only part of it became usable, and then was unable to tap the kid in time.

The Verdict

DynamoKid Touch is a good concept. I hope developer Orangepixels keeps at, cleaning up the controls and/or tweaking with the speed to make it a little fairer. Everybody likes a challenge, but the cards seem too stacked against the player.